


Cut Up Boys

by Laylah



Category: Baccano!
Genre: M/M, Really Bad Romance, What-If, bad for everyone else that is, hit men, killers in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:00:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The look Ladd gives him is needy, murderous, admiring. "You're great," he says, "really great. One of these days I'm going to really kill you."</p><p>[completely inspired by the crack ending for the DS game. *cough*]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut Up Boys

Claire wakes up from his nap at just the right moment, rolls out of bed and smiles at the roar of Ladd's shotgun, the sharp smell of powder and scorched cloth as the slug buries itself in the mattress. "Getting restless?" he asks.

The look Ladd gives him is needy, murderous, admiring. "You're great," he says, "really great. One of these days I'm going to really kill you."

"Not today, though," Claire says -- it's kinder than pointing out that nobody can kill him, ever, and when you're in love you should be kind to each other, shouldn't you?

"Hah." Ladd smiles, and he looks so handsome, so _fond_, that Claire's heart skips a beat. "Not today, all right. First we need to kill a lot more people together."

"That's right," Claire says. He stretches, and smiles again when he can see Ladd's eyes tracking the way he moves, staring at the bare skin where his under shirt rides up. "We're in New York for a job, after all. Not likely we'll run out of people to kill any time soon."

It's so easy to make Ladd happy with him. It makes Claire feel like he must be a good fiancé -- well, he knew he would be; he can do anything he decides to, after all. But he likes to see it confirmed in the delight on Ladd's face.

"You're calling your boss?" Ladd asks, following Claire over to the telephone.

"My brother," Claire says as he picks up the earpiece. He dials the number of the office upstairs from Coraggioso, and Ladd leans against the wall beside him, petting his hair as Claire listens to the soft burr of the telephone ringing.

"Hello?" he hears, after the third one.

"Luck," Claire says. "You know who this is, don't you?" He doesn't like to use his name on the telephone; he's heard that as far as the FBI knows, Claire Stanfield is dead and Ladd Russo is missing, and he'd like to keep it that way.

"Of course," Luck says. His voice sounds tinny through the connection. "It's good to hear from you. Are you in town?" Luck also knows how to be careful, won't say anything serious on the telephone.

"For a little bit," Claire says. Ladd shifts to stand behind him, breath hot on his nape. "I thought I might stop by and say hello."

Luck answers, but Claire's distracted by Ladd's voice in his other ear, whispering: "-- everyone he hires us for, and everyone in New York, you know, and then everyone in America, how's that, and then that'll be enough, won't it? I'll kill you then, my love, my monster, my --"

Claire reaches up and slips his fingers into Ladd's mouth to stop the words, and Ladd bites but only a little. "Sorry," Claire says to Luck, stroking Ladd's tongue, "could you say that again? My fiancé's trying to distract me."

"I just said I'd love to see you," Luck says. "Did you say your fiancée? Have you met a girl crazy enough to go along with you at last?"

"It's complicated," Claire says. "I'll tell you about it when we see you."

"I look forward to it," Luck says, though from the tone of his voice it sounds like he doesn't really.

When Claire hangs up the telephone, he looks back over his shoulder at Ladd. "If you really kill everyone in New York," he says, "then after that _I'll_ kill _you_."

"Hah," Ladd says, pulling back to let Claire's fingers go. "I'd like to see you try, really try. You pushy bastard, thinking nobody could really kill you." He's still smiling, and it's not even the starving manic smile he gets when he needs to kill right that minute.

Claire takes hold of his lapels and pulls him closer. "Keep trying to prove me wrong," he says, and kisses Ladd's mouth before Ladd can promise he will.

One of the most amazing things about this whole romance is that they decided early on there was no point to waiting until their wedding night, since they were both men and wanted to do it sooner.

They're quick this time, though, because Claire doesn't want to keep Luck waiting and Ladd would still rather kill than do anything else, even if this is a close second. They finish, wash up, and dress for business -- Ladd wears white and Claire wears black, and they look like quite the pair.

Ladd throws an arm over Claire's shoulders as they walk across town. Ever since that brawl in Detroit that started when Claire wanted to hold his hand, Ladd's been extremely affectionate in public. Claire doesn't mind so much. They're in love, aren't they? And that's wonderful. Any anyone who'd get angry and violent because of their love can't be a good person, so it's fine if they get Ladd's attention.

"How about that guy?" Ladd says as they wait for a traffic light to change. He nods to a man on the other side of the intersection. "We make him sick, yeah? You can tell. Look at him."

They have work to do tonight. "Some weak-looking guy like that?" Claire asks. The light changes. He leans over and kisses Ladd's cheek before they start to cross. "Let's not waste time with boring guys like that. We have a mafia to go after."

"Right, right," Ladd says. He leans into Claire as they walk. Claire smiles at the guy who'd been staring, and the guy has the sense to look away. "Real tough guys, huh?"

"Should be," Claire says. "My brothers only ask me to come home to take care of the really tough jobs."

Ladd keeps smiling all the way to the club.

When they get there, Luck steps up to hug Claire and then really takes in the two of them, and the look on _his_ face isn't the look of a man who's disgusted by them, not at all. He looks like he wants, the poor thing. Has he always been like that?

"Ladd," Claire says, "this is my little brother, Luck Gandor. Luck, this is my fiancé, Ladd Russo."

"You don't look anything alike," Ladd says, at the same time that Luck protests, "But if you're both men, how --"

"I was adopted," Claire tells Ladd. He smiles at Luck, and shrugs. "All right, we haven't found a priest who'd agree to do the ceremony yet, but we will. There's no question about that. And we'll want everyone to be there."

"Congratulations," Luck says, and he really does look like he wishes he'd thought to ask first. Poor Luck. "You'll have to tell me when you, ah."

Claire nods. "I will," he promises. But he can see the way Ladd's fingers flex with wanting to hold a weapon, wanting to choke something. "But first, let's talk about this job you have for us."

*

This is a great time, really great, the kind of thing that could really make Ladd start to like New York. Claire's brother gave them the really good kind of job -- make an example of them, he said, make the other families think twice about moving in on Gandor territory -- and the club he sent them to is just full of tough guys who think they can't be killed. Ladd breaks open his shotgun, tosses spent casings on the floor and loads more slugs.

"Come on," he calls as he stands up. "You can't all be dead already! Weren't you the toughest mafia family in New York?" Claire's upstairs somewhere, left him here with the dance floor (bodies piled in the middle of it, the boards too sticky-wet for dancing) and the bar (the bartender slumped over it, his throat slit with a broken bottle) to clean up himself.

When he starts across the room toward the back stairs, this guy rushes him from behind an overturned table, holding a knife. Ladd spins, arm up and inside the guy's wild swing, knocking his hand back.

"Come on, come on!" He slams the barrel of his gun into the side of the guy's face and the guy staggers. One good punch -- left-handed! -- is all it takes to put him on the floor. "How can you expect me to take you seriously with a weak attack like that?" Ladd puts his foot on the guy's throat, and leans forward. "You don't even make it all that interesting! If you want to come after Ladd Russo, you know, you have to be a lot stronger than that!" He pushes harder, most of his weight on the stupid guy's windpipe now. There's some thrashing and gurgling but the hands clutching at his pant leg are way too weak to do anything to stop him, and after a minute -- Ladd watches, sees if he can spot the moment when it happens -- the guy goes limp, stops fighting, stops trying to get more air. Stops _needing_ any more.

Well. It's boring down here now, isn't it?

"Mm, Claire," Ladd says -- no, that's not right, he insists on having a different name when they're _hired_ to kill. "Vino, Vino, where have you gone? There's nobody here who's as much fun to kill as you will be." He starts up the stairs, into the dark. "Where did you go, Vino?" he murmurs. There's blood streaking the walls in the staircase, big messy swipes of it. Ladd grins. Going the right way, yes.

He hears the other guy before he can actually hear Vino himself. "Please," the guy's saying, shaky-voiced, from a room at the end of the hall. "Please stop. I'll give you anything you want, just --"

Hah. Like that _ever_ works.

"Vino," Ladd purrs. "Are you having fun, Vino? I am. I'm having such fun." He stalks down the hallway, stepping over the wet broken pieces Vino's left behind. He can hear Vino talking now, too quiet to make out words, that obnoxiously reasonable tone he uses when he's refusing to just die. Then the other guy starts screaming. Ladd walks a little faster.

The room used to be somebody's office, before they got there. Now it's just a disaster, furniture knocked over, money scattered in puddles of blood on the floor. The desk lamp lies on its side in the corner, flickering. There are a couple of big bodyguard types face down near the door, and Vino's crouched over the screaming guy.

Ladd takes aim and squeezes the trigger.

The screaming stops, the guy's head splattering to bits, and Ladd pumps the second round into the chamber, fast. He fires again and he thinks Vino's moving too fast -- but the light gives up and dies, and he doesn't see for sure.

"Did I get you, you bastard?" he asks, stepping into the room, toward the last place he actually _saw_ Vino. The answer's probably no. Vino's tough to kill. For a second there's no answer, and Ladd takes another step.

Someone slams into his back hard enough that he drops his gun, sends him staggering toward the desk, and he'd know those grasping hands anywhere, that heavy smell of blood. "Didn't I tell you?" Vino asks. "Not today."

Ladd can't help laughing, something easing in his chest, making him feel warm. This must be love, he thinks, this feeling that he's glad Vino won't die like that, won't make it easy for him. "All right, then," he says, "if you know everything, what are we doing now?"

Vino's hand slides down, splays across the front of Ladd's pants. He'll be leaving a bloody handprint right there, right over Ladd's cock. And he's a bastard but he's right, he's right, that's what they should be doing now -- Ladd's not ready to kill him, not now, so they should have some other kind of release.

"That's right, that's good," Ladd says, reaching down himself so he can unbuckle his belt, unbutton his pants. "Found what you want, mm?"

"Found what _you_ want, feels like," Vino says, and he's pushing Ladd's shorts down out of the way so he can take hold of Ladd's cock.

"I want to kill you," Ladd says, just so he won't get the wrong idea. His hand is blood-sticky, pulling at Ladd's skin.

"Of course, that too," Vino says. He sounds happy, the crazy bastard. He's undoing his own pants with his other hand, quick and clever, always so clever. "Here," he says, pushing his cock between Ladd's thighs, warm and stiff. When he leans as close as he can, the head of it nudges right up against Ladd's balls. "Push back."

"Tch, always think you can call the shots, don't you?" Ladd says, but he presses his hands against the desk and pushes back anyway. He's getting the better part of this deal, isn't he? Vino's hand feels good on his cock, rough and greedy, and Vino's cock feels good, too. "Harder, come on, don't hold back, you know I'm tougher than that."

Vino laughs, like a pushy bastard who thinks he's too much for Ladd Russo, and then the thing he does with his hand is just right, so good, exactly what Ladd wants, and it's almost, almost all right for him to say stupid things like the world is his, because this -- when he can make it feel so good, it's okay right now, just right this minute, to let him think he's right. He's making noises like it hurts him, it feels so good for him too, and his grip is rough and the air smells like blood, like gunpowder, and they're both killers, both killed so many tonight, all the tough guys this place could throw at them, still not enough -- there should still be more before he -- Ladd groans, ready so ready he wants to explode, can't stand it anymore and the light behind his eyes when he comes is bright as new blood and Vino's cock slides suddenly wet between his thighs.

Someday he thinks he should try killing Vino right then, just after they come. Not this time, though. He feels too good, relaxed at last, calm for just a little while.

"I love you," Vino says, really straightforward, like how you'd say _the sun'll come up tomorrow_ or _we killed every last one of the bastards_.

"Hah," Ladd says, and pulls free of Vino's grip so he can turn around. "I love you, too. You're going to be more fun to kill than anyone else ever." His eyes are adjusting to the dark, so he can see the smears of blood on the pale skin of Vino's face. "Come here."

Ladd reaches out, pulls Vino into his arms, and they kiss. There's blood on his mouth, blood everywhere. "You think the cops are coming, mister the-world-does-what-I-want?"

"Not yet," Vino says. His eyes shine in the dark, so close.

"Good," Ladd says, and drags him closer again. "We're not done here."


End file.
